Disease

Want to Understand the Internet? Consider the "Great Stink" of 1858 London

Bad information online is a concern. But the history of public health shows that understanding how it spreads and circulates is critical to fighting it. 

Jonathan Kennedy Tells the World's History through Eight Plagues

A new book asks whether microbes have been bending the narrative arc of history all along. 

Why Has American Progress Stalled? Blame Our Belief in "Eureka!"

Moments of creative innovation matter, but invention depends on a society that is prepared to take advantage and distribute the benefits. 

Monkeypox Has Been Around for Decades; This Outbreak is a Product of Neglect

by Alessandro Hammond and Cameron Sabet

The world's response to viral outbreaks in poor nations demonstrates the hoarding of resources in the Global North, but it's ultimately self-defeating for rich nations, too. 

Ukraine's Next Enemy: Disease

by Max Brooks, Lionel Beehner and John Spencer

"If we want to help the Ukrainian resistance, we shouldn’t be sending them only Javelins and body armor. They need emergency supplies — bulk sanitation items such as alcohol-based hand sanitizer, ammonium nitrate to counter food-borne illness, and rat traps and poisons."

The Inescapable Dilemma of Infectious Disease

by Kyle Harper

Control of infectious diesase is arguably humanity's greatest triumph. Has that triumph changed our environment to make diseases tougher to control? Has our success stopped us from being able to think of how to thrive without control of infections? 

How Epidemics And Pandemics Have Changed History

This podcast features historians Jo Hays, Frank Snowden, and Elizabeth Fenn in a discussion of the role of infectious disease in history.

Miracle ‘Coronavirus Cures’ Haven’t Changed in 700 Years

by Jennifer Wright

The many bizarre "cures" for the coronavirus circulating online are nothing new. Rather, they have a lineage that stretches back to the bubonic plague.

The Dangerous History of Immunoprivilege

by Kathryn Olivarius

We’ve seen what happens when people with immunity to a deadly disease are given special treatment. It isn’t pretty.

The Pandemic Is Not a Natural Disaster

by Kate Brown

Zoonotic diseases can seem like earthquakes; they appear to be random acts of nature. In fact, they are more like hurricanes—they can occur more frequently, and become more powerful, if human beings alter the environment in the wrong ways.

The Other Pandemic

by Alan M. Kraut

The coronavirus will not succeed in doing to American society what fascism did to Europe in the 1930s and 1940s, but it has sparked a virulent wave of racism and intolerance, especially aimed at Chinese Americans.

In 19th-Century America, Fighting Disease Meant Battling Bad Smells

Melanie Kiechle, a history professor at Virginia Tech, foul smells or "miasmas" were considered to indicate risk of disease before the germ theory of disease developed.

Historian William McNeill Warned in 1976 that a Mutated Flu Virus Could Cause a Pandemic

by James Thornton Harris

McNeil’s major achievement was to incorporate developments in microbiology, anthropology and archeology and synthesize them in a popular world history that identified disease as a primary shaper of world history.  

A Brief History of Beards and Pandemics

Unlike what was thought during the Spanish flu outbreak of 1918, beards cannot trap germs nor transfer disease.

How Pandemics Change History

In his new book, “Epidemics and Society: From the Black Death to the Present,” Frank M. Snowden, a professor emeritus of history and the history of medicine at Yale, examines the ways in which disease outbreaks have shaped politics, crushed revolutions, and entrenched racial and economic discrimination.

The rising panic over coronavirus is likely to make containing it harder

by Danielle B. Wetmore

Panics spread misinformation that make crafting sound medical solutions more difficult, while fueling bigotry.

The History of the Impact of Globalization on Infectious Disease Emergence and Control

The current era of globalization is more properly viewed as an intensification of trends that have occurred throughout history. 

Assassination as Cure: Disease Metaphors and Foreign Policy

by Sarah Swedberg

Kinzinger’s words fit within a long historical tradition of badly used disease metaphors that often accompany bad outcomes.

Historians are joining with scientists in a breakthrough approach

by Monica Green

Historians haven't traditionally welcomed scientists into their corner of research, but they should -- and now we're doing it. 

We Can't Give in to Ebola Scaremongering

by Alison Bateman-House

It is too easy to think that keeping the sick out of the nation will protect America’s health.